Avalanches

Toss me a life preserver.  I am drowning in paper. 

The school year ends on Thursday for Abby and Caroline.  Consequently, the typical mild flood of papers and things that come home in their bookbags has changed from its typical steady stream into a deluge.  Holy. Moley. 

I've started to write several different posts on the amount of stuff (I'm thinking of a more descriptive word here, but my daughter does read this) that comes home on a weekly basis.  It's a lot of paper.  A LOT lot. Today, however, set a new record for the amount of stuff that arrived at 3:52pm.  Two desks worth, plus a year's worth of kindergarten art, a year's worth of writing papers, and a just a hot mess of other stuff.  I'd be lying if I said I'm looking forward to going through all of these papers.  I'm tempted to just recycle the lot of it, but then I'd wonder about the potential treasures I'd be missing, like Abby's precious little poem about clouds called "Cotton Candy."

One Day's Worth of Stuff:




Also, totally off-topic, I just took some Benadryl because my allergies kicked back in hard this morning.  I only took a children's dose, and WOW, am I out of it now.  So, if this post is riddled with typos, missing words, or just seems spacey, it's because I feel like I'm typing from inside a foggy bubble.  Spacey is sure a funny looking word.    

Returning to undesirable piles, Ben got mad at me and trashed his room.  I'm going to give that boy some credit. When he decides to make a mess, he really puts his heart into it.  The pile on the floor contains EVERY toy and EVERY book and EVERY stuffed animal in his room.  Every last one. And, aside from the thoroughness, he did it silently.  So, I had no warning of what exactly what was awaiting me in his room when I opened the door.  Nicely done.  Now, go clean your room. 

(I'll be wading through paper downstairs.)

Ben's Impressive Pile

(after I told Ben I wasn't going to help him clean this up)

See?  He really emptied his bookshelf.

He threw in all the puzzles too, just to make it extra challenging.

 

(yes, I know the furniture doesn't match).

"But your mother will come.

She will find this big mess!

And this mess is so big

And so deep and so tall,

We can not pick it up.

There is no way at all!"

                                --Cat in the Hat

Riding Low and High

One thing I (usually) love about Caroline is that once she decides to do something, she puts her entire self into it.  100% commitment.  100% focus.  100% energy.  >100% intensity. She can be quite a force, when she chooses to be.  Trust me.

So yesterday after dinner, Caroline finally realized that almost every single piece of Memorial Parade candy she had collected had food dye in it, and she would not be able to eat it.  And, she was upset.  Really upset. In fact she was crying so hard and so loudly with her head tilted back so far that I don't think it could be called crying anymore.  It was keening, a full-bodied lament for lost candy.  Although I did have some sympathy for her, I certainly did not have sufficient patience to handle the volume or level of sadness that the 17 pieces of stale sugar had caused. 

However, in my most recent attempt to yell less, I looked into my parenting playbook and called the oldest trick in the book:  Redirection.  I picked Caroline up, carried her like a little child and said, let's go outside and look at the pretty flowers. She actually went along with this approach since she had exhausted herself.  We looked at all the pretty flowers, and talked about the flower names and the colors.  She calmed herself down.  And, THEN, I had my best parenting idea ever.  I told Caroline we were going to go practice riding her two-wheeler, just her and me.  Her face immediately brightened and we took her bike up to the little dead-end street near our house. 

After doing the whole run/walk hunched over beside her holding the handle bars and seat, she seemed to be getting more stable.  I (mercifully) switched to a more upright stance holding just the seat.  "Are you still holding on, Mom?" she kept asking.  "Yes, of course I am!" I answered.

Then after just one or two more passes, I wasn't holding on anymore.  She took off giggling down the street all alone.   

Since all she still needed with was getting started (one-two-three PUSH), we ran back home to get the rest of the family to show off her new skill.  We waited and waited "forever" (actual time, 2 minutes), for everyone to arrive, but Caroline didn't want to wait for Dad anymore, so she kicked off all by herself and zipped off.

And, that's how Caroline learned how to ride a two-wheeler in all of 15 minutes.  In flip-flips and a yellow skirt, naturally.

Oh, and 5 minutes later, Abby taught her how to corner on rails.

Maybe it won't be such a bad summer after all.

Happy Birthday Ben!

We've spent the last week celebrating Ben's 4th birthday x 3.  The first party was at Grandma and Grandad O's house on Memorial Day.  The second party was on Saturday, just the immediate family with donuts and Legos (what more could a 4-year old need, right?)  The third party was a parade, more Legos, Spiderman decorations, and cake.  Since Ben is only 4, I took credit for throwing the Malvern Memorial Day parade just for his birthday. Yes, I did lie to my child.  I also cleaned his room and the rest of the house for his birthday too, but he seemed a lot less impressed by the cleaning than by the parade.  Happy Birthday Ben!  You have brought us more joy and smiles that I can express.

Ben is always saying things that crack me up.  My favorite Ben quote from last week came unexpectedly while he was getting ready for school on Friday morning.  He is going to school "camp" right now, which entails wearing his bathing suit to school for the week since there are wading pools to play in during the day.  However, I only have one bathing suit sun shirt and one set of swim trunks that fit Ben right now.  So, on Friday, he was wearing the same outfit for the 4th day in a row.  After we put it on (again), Ben said, "Dammit, not this again."   Definitely not what I was expecting!  

Ice Cream Cake!

A little birthday "book browsing"

Legos were kind of a hit

Philadelphia Mummers

Bagpipes too!

Make a Wish

Abby rode her bike in the parade this year (kid's with decorated bikes lead off the parade).  She had a blast!

The Sweet Life of a Kindergartener

Caroline's Updated Smile

In addition to her new smile, Caroline is having a fairly enjoyable week (gross understatement).

Sunday:  Swimming AND a Surprise Birthday Party
Monday:  Visit from the Tooth Fairy AND a Memorial Day Party
Tuesday: Just a regular school day
Wednesday:  Kindergarten Concert (two performances)
Thursday:  Kindergarten Field Trip to Milky Way Farms (with tasty homemade ice cream!)
Friday:  Kindergarten Reader's Theater  AND the Daisy Bowling Party
Sunday: Malvern Memorial Parade AND a Birthday Party.

What a life!

I Heart Black & Decker

I am in love.  Love, love, love.  I am in love with my new lawn mower.   No mocking, please.  It was love at first sight.

Behold: The Black & Decker CM1936.
It is a 19-Inch, 36-Volt Cordless Electric Mulching Lawn Mower

Isn't she a beauty?  And, she purrs like a kitten. 

Ok, I'm exaggerating about the kitten part a little, but the humm of motor is so quiet that I could hear birds singing while I was mowing the lawn with a ridiculously big grin on my face this morning.  No lie, the birds were chirping along (and I really did have a goofy smile too). 

Zero emissions.  This mower runs off a rechargable electric battery.  So, the garage does not smell like gasoline.  Side benefit:  No pull cord.  You push a button, pull the safety lever, and starting mowing. 

AND (there's more!) the mulching attachment comes pre-installed, and there is a bag for clippings if you want to go that route.  Allow me to step onto my environmental soapbox for a moment, but if you always bag your grass, please consider the mulching option -- even occassionally. Not only does the grass unnecessarily clutter your local landfill, but you are robbing your lawn of the nutrients (especially nitrogen) provided by decomposing grass. Grass clippings are 80% water and 5% nitrogen (plus other nutrients too), and are an excellent organic fertilizer.  For more articulately explained reasons about why you should consider mulching, see PADEP's "Let it Lay" program or Mulching vs. Bagging on All About Lawns.  Your lawn will thank you! (stepping off my soapbox now...)

Our new mower replaces our old style trusty reel mower that served us well for the last decade.  The little push mower cut (and still does cut) grass really well.  Unfortuantely, ours never cut crab grass or dandelion stems or the thicker seed bearing grass stems.  Also, it gets jammed on every stick, which is kind of jarring.  I looked into electric mowers a few years ago, and I couldn't find one that I really wanted to try.  But, then I found the CM1936.   And, it's a match made by Black and Decker.

Just a Typical Morning Here...

Battle for the Living Room

Yes, it's perfectly natural to wear repulsor weapons with my cow costume.

Book Review: "642 Things to Draw"

I happened to run across this book, "642 Things to Draw," on a design blog that I follow, and it looked like so much fun that I went ahead and decided to try it in our house without even finding a hard copy to review first. (I know, I was really living on the edge on that one, wasn't I?)

Although this is bound like a book, it really can't be called a book.  It is more of a sketchbook that has ideas printed in small print at the top of each page.  Some pages are divided into multiple sections, other pages are for a single topic.  The sketching ideas range from very specific (e.g., "cat's whiskers") to quite vague ("the wild blue yonder").  The topics are wide-ranging, and even include some science or political topics that might generate a little research (e.g., "photoluminscent plankton").  There are hundreds and hundreds of ideas that children could draw. The paper is high quality white paper too, which can handle multiple erasings for the perfectionists among us.  

My children are prolific artists, which is something that I think is wonderful and to be encouraged. However, we are so prolific that we have overflowed our entryway art wall. This sketch book is nice because all the drawings are contained, and can even be revisited to add more detail. I bought a copy for Caroline and for Abby. I really should have bought one for myself too. So, instead, I've been sketching along on scraps of paper. Caroline has sketched the most topics so far; Abby's art is more detailed. Overall, this book is totally fun and absolutely worth the $11 or so dollars it cost on Amazon. Also, this book would be fantastic for long car rides, especially when presented with a set of sharpened colored pencils and an eraser.

Here is my favorite sketch so far from Caroline, titled "Globe".  I would have sketched a picture of the Earth, but I love that she interpreted "Globe" as "Snow globe."